David Katz takes stock of the boom in the butler industry:
Thirty-five years ago, there were only a few hundred butlers left in Britain; today there are roughly 10,000, plus thousands more abroad, including the fastest-growing butler market of them all, China.
“For the Chinese, it’s a status thing,” says Sara Vestin Rahmini, who founded Bespoke Bureau. “They’re like, ‘Just send us somebody who looks British, who looks European.’” … Gary Williams, a London-based staffing agent who himself was a butler for 15 years, credits much of China’s butler demand to Downton Abbey. Watched by millions of Chinese, it’s one of the biggest British TV imports ever. The show is more than just a soapy diversion, he says; it’s a guidebook for living in a stratified society. “The Chinese aren’t even really sure what a British butler should do,” says Williams. “It will take them 10 to 15 years to really understand that.”
But they’ll pay – and pay well – to find out. A new butler willing to go east, to Shanghai or Dubai or anywhere else suffering an Anglo-servant shortage, can start at $60,000 a year and run his employer’s estate from the start. In the West, where standards are higher and the competition more fierce, a rookie typically apprentices for a few years and earns a starting salary of maybe $40,000. A butler in either market should hit six figures within five to six years – sooner if he learns a few dirty secrets or gets poached by one of his boss’s billionaire friends.
The Dish 